In Shenzhouya, the 'Divine Land of Grace,' there was a hidden realm known as the 'Valley of a Hundred Flowers,' a valley of warm colors and intoxicating fragrances, where dwelled the beautiful lotus spirit, Princess Chen Mei-Ling. Wherever she walked, flowers bloomed at her feet; her laughter rang like wind-bells in a summer storm. Yet three millennia old, Mei-Ling still possessed the changeable heart of spring—wanton, tender, cunning, and fearless.
She was his youngest and most beloved daughter, Emperor Chen Mingyu. Of all his many daughters, Mei-Ling was his favorite—his pride, his joy, his unmanageable little lotus.
But the kingdom was held in trust by an ancient compact, one that demanded a princess of royal blood to be married in betrothal to secure peace and harmony between the kingdoms. Although Mingyu had many daughters, it was Mei-Ling—gifted with otherworldly beauty, warlike temper, and the rare gift of magic lotus-born—that drew the Demon Emperor's eye, Wu Fenglian, lord of the Shadowed Realms.
With a heavy heart, and reluctantly, Mingyu agreed to offer his beloved daughter's hand to the demon king—a sacrifice of duty, not love.
Mei-Ling's blood ran cold when she heard the news. Fenglian—cold, hard, and ruthless—wanted to take her, not as a lover, but as a possession: to break her will and bend her kingdom. The thought sent shivers down her spine.
"I'm a peace treaty now?"
she scoffed in disgust to her maid, Zhao Jingfei.
"Beautiful. Perhaps they'll have my face stamped on a coin next—Property of Fenglian," she spat out bitter sarcasm.
"You'd still be the most handsome coin," Jingfei joked dryly, stooping to fold more laundry and avoiding Mei-Ling's gaze.
Mei-Ling's fists curled up.
"No. I won't be his. anything," she said.
But as the ink dried on the wedding scroll—"carved with black runes and covenant oaths"—Mei-Ling understood her father had enrolled her into a golden cage. Fenglian was already smirking, parading his "trophy" before the demon courts.
"He says he loves you, Princess," Jingfei replied, her voice as dry as the desert winds.
"You'll be a lovely crown gem in his collection, I suppose."
"Oh, wonderful," Mei-Ling sneered as she fell onto a pile of silken pillows.
"What's next? He'll ride me atop his throne?"
"Probably so," Jingfei smiled. "He seems the type who bathes in privilege and milk."
Mei-Ling scowled at the devious marriage contract.
"If I have to marry that. monstrosity, I swear I'll throw myself into the Void."
"Shall I pack your Void bag, or are we going light?" Jingfei asked, raising an eyebrow.
That night, while the moon wept silver tears across the sky, Mei-Ling made her true choice.
"I'm done being their pawn. their peace offering," she whispered into the night.
"I'll run so far nobody will ever be able to catch up with me. Somewhere nobody's ever heard of my name. where I can live as I want to, without strings, without destiny tugging at my ankles."
With that, the princess no longer waited for anyone's permission. She would pen her own ending.
With her loyal white tiger, Bai Gui, padding silently behind her, Mei-Ling crept into the sacred vault deep beneath the palace where no light ever lingered. There it rested—an ancient rune humming with unbridled power, its surface etched with the markings of an ancient oak tree long forgotten to time.
Her only way out.
Mei-Ling stared at it, her heart pounding.
"Father used to tell me. this rune opens the way to another world," she whispered, to herself.
"But no one knows where. All its secrets were lost to the ages. and no one's even certain that it still works."
A bitter smile creased her face.
"But I must try."
She moved trembling fingers over the weathered face of the rune, following the ancient oak carving as a farewell. And then, softly breathing, she laid her brow against the rune, petting it like an old lover.
"I'm not doing this for duty. for them. no more," she vowed.
The air hung, oppressive with the weight of her choice. The world held its breath for a moment. Then, as suddenly as the stillness had started—the rune burst into flame, its bright green light pulsing as if it had listened and agreed.
"Princess?" Jingfei's anxious voice, muffled in the blackness.
"Tell me you're not really—"
"Oh, I'm really," Mei-Ling's smile increased as mirth danced in her eyes.
"Fenglian. you may wed yourself."
In a single sweeping motion, Mei-Ling grasped the rune. Her incantation, untamed and frenzied, overwhelmed the room—twisting through the ancient runes, living on her obstinacy with fury and a dash of childish revenge.
The ground split. The skies above shook. A portal ripped asunder in a cacophonous bellow, its scream wailing like an unleashed dragon.
BCM.
Mei-Ling stood at the border, her hair flying in the wind as she took one last glance back—at the palace, the kingdom, the life that had been planned for her.
"No thrones. No emperors. No arranged marriages. I'm done."
Laughing wildly, shining and with the flavor of freedom, she dived into the unknown.
"Wait—darn it, Princess! You can't abandon me! You can't leave me behind!"
Jingfei cursed and raised her skirts to dash after her mistress.
With a low, menacing snarl, Bai Gui growled at the collapsing vault one last time, then leapt after them.
Maid and tiger dived into the gateway simultaneously as it began to dissolve—disappearing into the searing green light in pursuit of their escaped princess.
And in an instant. were gone.
And meanwhile.
In the Valley of a Hundred Flowers
The throne room trembled under the weight of bad news. Emperor Mingyu stiffened, knuckles tightening on the delicately carved armrests, as his head guide gave the report, head bent low.
".And, Your Majesty. the sacred vault was breached. The ancient rune is. missing," the guide hesitated.
Mingyu's jaw clenched so hard it creaked.
"Gone?" he growled in a low, menacing tone, like a coming storm.
The guide swallowed hard.
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty. And. the princess. and her pet tiger and maid, Zhao Jingfei. They are. gone."
The air was heavy with oppressive silence, crushing every heart in the room.
Mingyu's eyes burned—not with fury, but with helpless fury.
"That foolish little girl. Mei-Ling," he breathed, anguish tainting his words. "My little flower. My only lotus remaining. She has done the unthinkable."
"I should be angry enough to set half the kingdom ablaze," the Emperor breathed, his own voice low and threatening.
"But. she is my daughter." He gritted his eyes closed, anguish passing over his face.
"And if she has fled. it is because I have not protected her from this evil bargain."
The head priest spoke uncertainly,
"Your Majesty. if Fenglian discovers about this—"
"He won't," Mingyu hissed, his words icier than winter's ice.
"He can't. If Fenglian ever gets the remotest notion that Mei-Ling escaped, he will hunt her. and catch her."
He stood up, the weight of the throne bearing down on his shoulders.
"Nobody departs this palace carrying this news. Seal the vault. Muffle the witnesses. From now. the princess is on a mission of diplomacy." That was the story to be told.
The priest bowed, but ventured a final question,
"And. the rune, Your Majesty? If she actually employed it.?"
Mingyu's face darkened.
"The rune is old magic. Ancient magic. Power lost to time. but there were three of them, dispersed in this world."
His gaze snapped with purpose.
"Unless Fenglian learns the two other runes, he cannot follow her. Not across planes. Not even with all his damned armies."
Taking a deep breath, Mingyu relaxed his tone ever so slightly with occasional affection.
"Wherever you've fled, Mei-Ling. stay concealed. Live in freedom. I shall guard this secret until death."
He spun around from the court, eyes to the horizon.
"You shall not be his prize, my child. Not so long as I breathe."
***
Zvjezdano Nórland - The Celestial Northlands
They descended jarringly —face-first, into the crunchy earth. Beneath them, a softness of pine needles broke their fall and irritated their skin, and the air grew thickly sweet with the smelly scent of moss. Gnarled, ancient pines loomed overhead, their spiky arms clawing towards heaven with bestial ferocity. The air bit cold and thin, thickened with the sickly smell of sap and with the primitive odour of moist earth.
Mei-Ling groaned, ruffling a shower of leaves from her tangled hair.
"Wh. where are we?" she breathed, her words those of awe and disbelief.
The woods around them seemed to writhe with unseen life—a world of living things and one that breathed. Invisible lights flashed between the branches like stubborn pixies, and far off, the wind carried the silver music of chimes—a phantom sound that capered on the wind.
As if commanded, a piercing, shocked shriek pierced the air. Jingfei was hanging upside down, her ankle trapped in the gnarled, twisted claw of a blemished tree. Her skirt stuck embarrassingly above her shoulders, revealing far more than shyness would allow.
"GET. ME. DOWN!"
Jingfei shrieked with indignation, her voice ringing across the serene jungle.
Mei-Ling's laughter exploded forth, mirth spilling out until tears flowed in her eyes.
"Oh gods, Jingfei. the forest clearly favors you," she gasped between laughs.
"Princess, this isn't—I sense the wind!" Jingfei shot back, indignation color in her tone.
Between guffaws of laughter, Mei-Ling attempted to cast a spell—only to have magic sputter, useless within this magical world. Her cheeks flushed with mortification.
"This is humiliating," she confessed.
"Ya think?!" Jingfei thrashed, flailing her arms wildly.
"Just climb the damned tree!"
Before Mei-Ling could attempt it, a branch cracked crisply and loudly, and Jingfei fell upon her. They collapsed in an awkward heap on the forest floor—a knot of limbs and ripped silk.
"So. romantic," Jingfei panted, fighting for air.
"Unless it was for the mud in my nose."
Their giggles turned to quiet as Bai Gui stiffened into a startled crouch; ears up, muscles coiled in readiness. Out of the darkness, someone leaped from the woods.
SNAP.
The tiger let out a vicious roar—but too late. A tangle of writhing vines lifted him up in the air in a moment.
Mei-Ling spun around, and cold steel was against her throat. Hot breath tickled the ear as a voice, recognizable only in its tone, mumbled nonsensical words.
"Beautiful," the voice seductively drawled with an undertone of threat, "but trespassing."
The man was enormous, his frame shrouded in thick leather. His mouth reeked of metal and blood and snow's cold. Mei-Ling shook—not in fear, but because she was trying to overcome a far more perilous sensation.
"Hey!" Jingfei attempted to tackle the giant form—only to be quickly enveloped like a sack of potatoes, curses and kicks silenced behind the improvised hold.
Mei-Ling glared challengingly.
"You dare—" she started.
The man's knife bit deeper into her skin.
"Shh," he commanded.
Finally, Mei-Ling faced him, her ice-blue eyes meeting his with piercing intensity. One side of his face was a jagged scar, and his silver hair hung down to his shoulders in the dying light of the forest. He stood seven feet tall, a beautiful killer, every inch a tribute to his strength.
Out of the shadows, other men with sharper ears emerged, their faces unreadable. A single movement and the mysterious man silenced Mei-Ling with magic, and all was darkness.